Same old story: Revs now just playing for jobs

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By Danny Picard
CSNNE.com Staff ReporterFollow @dannypicard
FOXBORO --It was fitting, really.

The New England Revolution arent going to the playoffs.That was made official after Saturday nights 2-1 loss to the Seattle Soundersat Gillette Stadium.

But it was the way they lost that was significant, becauseit portrayed their entire 2011 season.

This has happened many times before, said Revolution coachSteve Nicol after the loss. We make mistakes and we get punished and we cantquite finish things off. That kind of sums it up.

The Revs took a 1-0 lead on a Diego Fagundez header off aBenny Feilhaber corner kick in the 35th minute. But one minute later, SeattlesFredy Montero tied the game at 1-1 as he caught New Englands defense sleepingand beat them to a loose ball at the top of the box, which he finished off theright post and in.

Montero added his second goal of the night, right out of thegate to begin the second halfin the 48th minuteto give the Sounders a 2-1lead that they never lost.

It was a play that caught the Revs defense sleeping onceagain, as Seattle goalkeeper Kasey Keller booted a ball all the way down field,and after getting a piece of several players, it bounced up over everyone andMontero stepped in all alone and put it in the net.

The two goals are basically on mistakes, said Nicol. Whatdo you say? Its a travesty.

Its the manner in how we lose them, added Nicol. Itsjust, obviously, Id rather lose by a good play on the opponents behalf. Butwhen you make the mistakes that we made for the two goals, its kind of hard totake. You see the effort the players put in tonight. They gave everythingagain. But we just find a way to hamstring ourselves.

We made terrible mistakes again that cost us, said ChrisTierney. So yea, were disappointed. I thought we created enough chances toget something from the game. But again, the story is, we didnt quite haveenough quality to put those away that we needed. And we gave up two cheapgoals. The same story, Im afraid.

Its very frustrating, added Tierney. As professionals,youre constantly evaluating your performance and the performance of the team.And it just hasnt been good enough. Theres really no two ways about that.Were bottom in the league. Theres no way of getting around that.

So what now?

With no playoffs for the second straight year, and threegames still remaining on the regular-season schedule, the Revolution are nolonger playing for a championship.

Theyre playing for their future in the league.

At this point, were fighting for jobs, and trying to makesure that every individuals doing what they have to do to prove that theydeserve a job in this league, Tierney said.

Jobs are on the line at this point, added Tierney. So,its a matter of pride at this point, and putting on a good performance.Everyones got to be proud to be here, and be in this league, and prove thatthey belong. Thats got to be in the back of our minds, as we go forward hereand try to get some wins for the fans and try to get some wins to prove that wecan play in this league.

Danny Picard is on twitter at http:twitter.comDannyPicard.

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